The Free Linguistics Conference was established in 2007 by Ahmar Mahboob and Naomi K. Knight at the University of Sydney. In 2009, Naomi completed her PhD studies and moved back to Canada. Ahmar continued to coordinate FLC and, in 2013, took it beyond Sydney to Hong Kong (2013), Shanghai, China (2014), Manila, Philippines (2015), Padang, Indonesia (2016), Lagos, Nigeria (2017), Kuala Lampur, Malaysia (2018), Jaoa Pessoa, Brazil (2019).
In 2014, Josephine Chen joined Ahmar and FLC Group was created. Josephine left FLC to pursue other interests in April 2018.
While the Free Linguistics Conference remains true to its mission of providing ‘a conference for everyone’, FLC Group added new services, including FLC Consultancy and Accreditation, FLC Courses, and FLC Publications. FLC also introduced and offers a range of Awards and Competitions.